GuessYourSecret
by unmotivatedmillenial
Summary: Far From Home Bridge AU. Peter works up the courage to come clean to MJ, but she thinks he’s making a very different confession. Can these two overcome their awkward natures so that love can prevail?


"You're Spiderman. I mean... it's kind of obvious," MJ said flatly.

Peter made what he hoped was a convincingly derisive and disbelieving face while he waited for his brain to turn on and come up with a suitable denial. He needn't have bothered because MJ just plowed through.

"I didn't forget that you went missing from the decathlon trip and Spiderman just _happened _to show up in D.C. and save everyone. And now 'Night Monkey' makes his first appearance in Prague the same day you do?"

MJ's drippingly sarcastic tone and the air quotations she'd used when referring to his European alter-ego/alibi indicated that she was pretty well convinced of the truth of what she was saying.

"I-I really don't know what you're talking about," Peter lied, half-assedly.

It was a stupid thing to say when he was so obviously busted. The old habit of protecting his identity was indeed dying hard. He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit of his.

"So... you really knew all this time?" he asked sheepishly.

"Well, yeah, Peter. I'm not Flash, you know. I'm not stupid. But I promise I haven't told anyone. I mean who would I even tell?" she added as an afterthought, referring to the fact that her social circle extended as far as the kids she hung out with for decathlon and no further.

Peter nodded slowly, taking the time to process what she was telling him. If she'd suspected him of being Spiderman all along, all of the stolen glances, the feeling that maybe MJ's eyes had been lingering on him too, it all had a very simple explanation that had nothing to do with her being madly in love with him. How could he have been so stupid?

"So, that's why you've been watching me so closely lately," he said before he could stop himself, trying and failing to mask the dejection he felt.

Peter stared at the cobblestone street beneath his feet. Unable to stand the disappointment and embarrassment, he was just about to turn and head back to the hotel when Michelle took a step toward him.

"Yeah, it's one reason," she said quietly.

When Peter gathered the courage to look up, MJ was looking back at him intently. To his surprise, he saw that she looked extremely nervous. The feelings of self-preservation that had caused him to shut down and try and push away from her were disabled in an instant and Peter thought to himself that they didn't work so well as far as defense mechanisms went.

"So, what would be the other reason?" he asked shyly, taking a step closer to her.

MJ matched him another step so that she was close enough to be heard at a whisper.

"I guessed your secret, Peter. Don't you think you can guess mine?"

Peter's heart actually skipped a beat. She was so cute it physically hurt. He was bursting to enact the plan and tell her how he felt, but a devilish impulse to drag out the exchange caught hold of him. MJ didn't really _do_ vulnerability. This might end up being his only opportunity to see her this way.

"Okay, but you had months to find out about me, years technically. I should at least get three tries," he bargained.

"That's reasonable, I guess," she mumbled in response.

He made a dramatically pensive face and tapped his finger on his chin deliberately.

"So, something you might be embarrassed to admit? he mused soberly, "Is it that you follow Flash's video channel and you actually think he's really funny?"

MJ rolled her eyes before glaring at him, looking a lot more like herself.

"You're an idiot," she said as she began to turn away from him.

Peter caught her by the wrist to keep her from leaving.

"Wait, I've still got two more guesses," he said as he pulled her back to stand in front of him.

"Fine," she allowed after a while, her eyes trained on her wrist which Peter still held, "Go ahead."

"Okay," Peter said thoughtfully, "The thing you're hiding is that you've got a crush on Brad and you've been hoping he'll ask you out so you can watch depressing movies and talk about books I've never read together,"

He meant it as a joke, but it backfired. Peter couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable voicing his fear so openly. He saw MJ's eyes soften as she gently wriggled her wrist free and took both of his hands instead, taking yet another step closer to him.

"Peter, I don't see him that way," she whispered, looking at him meaningfully.

Peter knodded once, allowing the reassurance of her words to settle over him like the warmth that was traveling from her hands into his. His heart was pounding but somehow he felt calmer than he had all summer. MJ was trying to tell him she actually felt the same way. All that was left was to ask her—

"Wait, hold on!" he said abruptly as a thought occurred to him. "So all those times you said I was being suspicious, or that it seemed like I was hiding something, you already knew exactly what was going on!" he exclaimed accusingly.

MJ let go of Peter's hands so she could cover her smile with her hand.

"Yeah. I'm sorry!" she laughed, sounding not very sorry at all. "I honestly wouldn't tease you so much if you didn't make it so easy for me,"

Peter couldn't help but grin despite his quickly evaporating annoyance.

"Yeah, that's not true at all, is it?" he asked knowingly.

Michelle giggled unexpectedly and shrugged, clearly unembarrassed at being caught in her obvious lie. She smiled at him openly, her way of admitting that, _no_, it wasn't true in the slightest.

Peter fought the urge to clutch his beating heart like a cartoon character. He wondered if MJ avoided all outward expressions of amusement so stubbornly out of consideration for others. At the moment, Peter felt like a small animal in headlights. She was distractingly, blindlingly beautiful.

Before he was truly aware of what he was doing, Peter leaned his face forward. As he did so the smell of MJ's shampoo and of her skin overwhelmed him to the point that his knees actually felt weak. Her lips, when he kissed them felt cool and unbelievably soft.

Although only their mouths were connected, Peter could feel that MJ's whole body had tensed in reaction to his touch. Had he overstepped a boundary? Mortified, he made to pull away from her, frantic apologies already forming in his mind.

As he broke the kiss, MJ reached out both hands and grabbed his jacket. Balling bunches of the material in either fist, she kept him from pulling away from her further. Her gaze was intense through her ridiculously long eyelashes.

"I wasn't expecting that," she said quietly, her deep brown eyes still trained intently on his.

Peter's stomach dropped as if he were plummeting on a thrill ride. MJ had released her grip on his jacket and was now positioning his hands around her waist, whereas before they had hung lamely at his side. Peter's face flushed as she pushed herself against him, this time clutching his shirt.

"This is how you do it, by the way," MJ whispered once her face was millimeters from his.

Blood rushed to places other than Peter's face as MJ's scent enveloped him again and once again her irresistibly soft lips met his. She kissed him slowly and deliberately. One of her hands found its way to his hair, fingers intertwining with his curls, the other came up to lightly stroke the side of his face. She let her thumb trace over his bottom lip before kissing him again. This time they let their tongues slide over each other. Peter shivered as he felt more than heard a soft moan escape Michelle's lips. He pushed the kiss deeper, keeping one hand on her tiny waist to hold her a little ways away from him, hoping against hope that she wouldn't notice his quickly swelling erection. A few minutes into their very stimulating make out session and Peter was beginning to feel light-headed. Gently he broke the kiss and pulled back slightly from MJ, reaching out to tuck a long, brown curl behind her ear.

"Wow," he said breathlessly, gazing adoringly at the beautiful girl in front of him.

"I agree," MJ replied, grinning suggestively back at him.

Peter swooned a little inwardly and couldn't resist pulling her close again, hard-on be damned.

"I'm realizing now how lucky I am that you usually refuse to smile in public. Otherwise I would have had to compete with Brad plus every guy in Europe for that kiss," Peter joked.

Michelle rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored the compliment.

"So, you've been thinking about kissing me for the whole trip, huh?"

She exaggeratedly raised her eyebrow and momentarily held him at arm's length so as to interrogate him more effectively. He easily grabbed MJ's wrists and started to gather her back to him but she playfully resisted and he ended up holding her from behind instead, arms crossed tightly over hers around her chest.

"MJ, I've been fantasizing about kissing you since about three days into the start of junior year," he said flatly in her ear.

MJ stopped pretending to struggle and let herself melt a bit into his arms.

"Well, I guess I'm glad you did then," she said before turning around and kissing him again. Without breaking the kiss, she guided his hands up to rest on her breasts. Peter knew they were the only ones on the dark cobblestone path but he still couldn't believe how bold MJ was being. Not that he didn't enjoy it. His penis throbbed painfully against the constraints of his jeans.

"MJ, I probably shouldn't. I'm all ready, you know... I'm already really excited," he said breathlessly in between breaks in the kissing.

"Yeah, I actually picked up on that," Michelle replied sarcastically, hooking two fingers through the belt loops of his jeans and pulling so that his hips crashed into hers and his hard-on pressed deliciously against her crotch. Peter actually saw stars. _Whoa. _Why the hell had he not initiated this conversation sooner?

MJ sighed into their kiss and Peter made a deep, strangled sounding noise in the back of his throat. No longer able to hold back, he pressed his pulsing erection in between MJ's legs while his frantic hands roamed over her mind-blowing body, the thin material of her dress providing only the slightest barrier.

"Oh my god, this is amazing," he gushed happily. "MJ, I hope you're prepared to be partially responsible for the death of Spiderman because this feels so good I'm literally going to die," Peter said before kissing and sucking random spots along MJ's jawline and neck.

"Maybe that's my plan," she countered dryly, her fingers back in Peter's hair as she continued to grind in time with him. The way her breath kept hitching was weakening the impact of her normally flawless deadpan. "Maybe I've only seduced you so that I can kill you, take your suit and become Spiderwoman," she said with a provocative wink.

"Okay, yeah, we have to stop," Peter said reluctantly pushing away from MJ yet again.

"What? I was _clearly_ kidding," she exclaimed, incredulous that he would take her stupid joke seriously.

"No, I know that. Don't judge me because I get that it's really messed up but as soon as you said that I felt like I was seconds from coming. "

"Whoa, Peter, really?" MJ asked not bothering to stifle a laugh.

"Uh, I don't know what it's like for you, but when you have a penis and an incredibly sexy girl who you've had a crush on forever is pressed against it talking about seducing you, it kind of sets things in motion, no matter the context, okay? " he countered defensively.

"Noted," MJ replied solemnly although she was still smirking. "So why, exactly, does that mean we have to stop?"

"W-what?" Peter stammered, completely floored.

Just an hour ago he had been agonizing over how to kiss her. Was MJ seriously suggesting that they go all the way?

"I have condoms back at the hotel," she offered calmly.

"I, uh yeah we, um -," Peter who was completely short-circuiting, cut off mid-sentence, utterly unable to process what was happening.

"Look, nerd, I may not be working with the exact same equipment, but the biology is pretty similar. And I mean, we died, y'know? Now that I'm alive again I'm trying to be more honest about the things that I want. I don't want to stop, do you?"

Michelle's eyes were intense as she asked that last question. To his embarrassment, Peter actually gulped. The reality was that _no_ he very much did not want to stop. He wanted to keep kissing MJ and feeling her body against his. He shook his head.

"No, I definitely want to keep going if that's okay, please," he replied awkwardly.

They smiled at each other, both a little embarrassed at their own forwardness but both very, very happy.

"Cool! Let's head back, and I'll sneak you up to my room."

"Cool," Peter parroted, slowly, trying to comprehend his luck and the colossal changes that had occurred in his life over the past few hours.

Michelle turned back in the direction of the hotel but Peter grabbed her hand in both of his to keep her from walking off.

"MJ, I think you're so incredible. You're crazy smart and you're funny and I like how you're really careful about choosing your friends. I know it's because you care way more than you let on and you worry about what would happen if those people went away. Also you're so, so pretty. I mean it's unreal. And your skin is, like, _very _soft. And . well, I'm rambling but you're really important to me so my point is do you want to be my girlfriend?"

Peter held his breath, waiting for her response. MJ stopped in her tracks and made her way back to him, her big brown eyes were even fiercer than usual as they locked onto his.

"Parker, please don't take this the wrong way, but I'd honestly rather die," she said in a brutally sincere tone.

Peter's jaw dropped.

"S-seriously?" he stammered feeling as though his heart was about to give out.

Instead of answering, MJ grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him into a deep, toe-curling kiss.

"No," she said after she released his shirt, taking off ahead of him again as if nothing had happened.

It took Peter a second to recover from the kiss.

"Wait, 'no' you're not serious or 'no' you won't wanna date me?" he asked the back of her head, confused.

"Of course we're dating, nerd, now come on," MJ called without turning around.

_Oh, thank_ _god. _Peter thought to himself, his hand over his chest.

"Literally why are you like this?" he called out after his girlfriend as he jogged to catch up to her.

MJ ignored this entirely.

"I said come on, Spiderman," she teased instead.

Not like he actually had to be told, he thought happily. He planned on being wherever she was whenever possible from that moment on.


End file.
